


walk together with our hands up in the sky

by idontshaveforsher_yesyoudo



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: (And Drinking and Swearing), But only mentioned!, Fluff, Irish Steve Rogers, M/M, Maybe some slight angst but mostly fluff, Multi, Period-Typical Homophobia, Queer Steve Rogers, Rated T for Language and some references to sex, Smoking, Steve Rogers is More than What You Expect, Steve Rogers is Not a Virgin, Tony Stark Is a Good Bro, possibly avengers: endgame compliant but idk bc the movie isn't out yet, steve/peggy is only mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-23
Updated: 2019-04-23
Packaged: 2020-01-24 12:22:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18571408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idontshaveforsher_yesyoudo/pseuds/idontshaveforsher_yesyoudo
Summary: Five takes on Steve Rogersor, Five times Steve Rogers surprises someone





	walk together with our hands up in the sky

**Author's Note:**

> this is literally just me rambling on about how much i love steve rogers through the pov of various characters. It was supposed to be like, 2k. help.
> 
> not beta-ed, finished in a rush to post it before endgame comes out, please point out any mistakes you might see! I'm neither from brooklyn nor is english my first language, and I really did not to a lot of research for this. feedback much appreciated!!
> 
> title by 'two high' by moon taxi
> 
> Trigger-Warning: Steve and Bucky use some terms for gay people that were period-typical but that might be triggers for someone. There is mentioned period-typical homophobia, but it is not the focus of the story. Please read with care.

**1925**

When Sarah Rogers gets home after twelve, Steve is already in bed. It’s nothing unusual. She’s been working longer hours at the hospital lately, trying to get enough hours to pay for their food and his medicine and everything else that needs paying.

Steve is seven now and goes to school, which makes working and taking care of him at the same time a lot easier. He usually spends the afternoons outside playing with the other boys from the neighbourhood and then has dinner with the family next door – a lovely Irish woman called Brighid who arrived in America only a few months before Sarah did, already with no husband, two small children in tow and a third one on the way.

Since Sarah and Steve moved into this building a few years ago the two women have been helping each other out whenever they can. Brighid takes Steve in the evenings and Sarah helps her with her laundry every week and does what she can whenever one of the kids is ill. It’s nice to have a support system that she so clearly lacked in her first couple of years in New York.

She quietly opens the door to their one-room apartment and slips off her shoes, hangs her coat over a chair. She can hear Steve’s even breathing from the bed and smiles at the lump of boy she can make out under the cover of the one bed in the room.

There’s a glass of milk set on the kitchen table and a piece of paper next to it. Sarah sits down for the first time since her short lunch break and exhales. The glass of milk is half empty in a matter of seconds, then her thirst is partly stilled and she sets the milk down to savour the rest of it, instead picking up the paper.

It’s a drawing done with pencil, a big house that looks vaguely like one of the houses out on Coney Island where she took him for his birthday last summer. There are several windows, and in the biggest one there’s a small boy next to a woman with curled hair and a dotted dress. There’s an arrow pointing at the pair marked ‘Steve and Mam’. Since he only just started writing his penmanship leaves something to be desired, but Steve has been drawing since he could hold a pen and – without wanting to brag – Sarah thinks it shows.

She can’t stop the smile spreading over her face when she looks at the other windows in the house. One holds a family and is labelled ‘Brighit & Aiden & Barri & Edna’ and one is dedicated to ‘Misis OConeell & her thre kats’. Most people that Steve sees on the regular and that are kind to him are in the house, and even ‘Mistr from the shops who gifes me choclate somtims’ has a window for himself.

As she finishes the glass of milk and looks at the pictures, Sarah Rogers comes to the conclusion that, despite the long hours at work and the tiny apartment they can afford and the saggy clothes, she did a pretty good job raising her son.

As she lays down in the bed next to him, he stirs and his eyes flutter open.

“Ma?” His voice is barely above a whisper. Sarah tucks the covers over his tiny shoulders and shushes him.

“Shh, _a stór_. It’s only me.”

He stirs and turns to tuck himself closer into her side. “ _Cas amhrán_?” _Sing me a song?_

And Sarah strokes his hair as she sings him to sleep.

_Mo ghaol, mo ghrá 'gus m'eadúil thú  
Mo stoirín úr is m'fhéirín thú…_

_Oh you my kin, my love and my idol  
My darling and my precious thing…_

 

* * *

 

**1937**

It’s a routine by now. Every Saturday, Bucky leaves work early and Steve finishes his drawing class around the same time, so they meet up at Mrs. O’Sullivan’s shop. While Bucky does the actual shopping, Steve usually wanders off to find trouble in a nearby back alley.

So, every Saturday without a fail, Bucky walks home with a bag of whatever groceries they can afford at the moment under one arm and an angry little blond best friend under the other. He carries/drags/pushes them up the stairs and makes sure they’re stowed away to their proper place – the food in the cupboard and Steve in the cramped bathroom to clean up whatever injury he got this time.

It’s one of those Saturdays when Bucky’s cleaning a cut on Steve’s brow, tutting like a mother, when he notes that Steve is unusually quiet.

“You okay there, bud?”

Steve pulls back a bit, leans his head against the mirror behind the sink he’s sitting on.

“’s not fair,” he murmurs.

“What is?”

“The guys today? They were picking on Paolo Santiago.”

Bucky sighs. “Steve, we talked about this. You can’t pick every damn fight – “

“They beat him up ‘cause he’s a fairy,” Steve interrupts him before he can finish.

Bucky’s jaw clenches. He hopes Steve doesn’t see it. This is not a topic he’s prepared to discuss with his best friend just yet.

Instead of acknowledging what Steve just said, he continues dabbing at the red cut on his forehead even though it’s probably long clean.

Steve winces at the sting of alcohol and continues, “’s just not fair that they can do that. Paolo’s just as good a fuckin’ guy as anyone else, doesn’t matter who the fuck he loves, does it?”

Bucky puts his cotton wipe away. “You shouldn’t get that heat up about that topic, though. Already got it hard enough, don’t need people thinking you’re homosexual, as well.”

Steve frowns. He’s angry, Bucky can tell. It’s quiet for a moment.

“What if I am, though?” Steve finally burst out.

Bucky turns his back on him, pretends to straighten the towel hanging on a rack there. He closes his eyes instead. He can hear Steve’s fingers tapping against the sink nervously.

He takes time to select his next words.

“If you were, I’d tell you to make sure you don’t get caught up in every single fuckin’ fight. To be a bit more fuckin’ careful.”

Steve is quiet and Bucky opens the bathroom and walks out. “I’m gonna fix us some dinner,” he throws over his shoulder.

After dinner, Bucky blows his last couple of dollars on a bottle of booze that Paul from the fifth floor distils in his bathroom, sits on the roof and tries to pretend that everything is fine. He stumbles home after midnight and Steve is already asleep, so he just drinks a glass of water and is out cold in seconds.

The topic is avoided for the next couple of weeks.

They continue in their usual routine of work, drawing classes for Steve, going out with some dame on the weekend for Bucky, having dinner together in the evenings – albeit the atmosphere seems a bit tense, now.

One Tuesday, he gets home earlier than Steve and notes that the kitchen is tinted orange from the setting sun. He looks at his watch and estimates that there’s ten minutes left of sunlight, so he lies down on the kitchen floor, folds his arms behind his head and closes his eyes.

The last warmth of the day engulfs him and as his breathing evens he’s almost dozed off when the door burst open.

“You won’t believe what kind of bullshit I heard at the shop – “

Steve’s voice stops abruptly.

Bucky’s eyes flutter open and he slowly props himself up on his forearms. “Wha’ happened?”

Steve stares at him. Exhales. His blonde hair is falling into his eyes and Bucky wants to – he ignores that train of thought.

It stays quiet for a moment or two as they stare at each other, then, suddenly, Steve shuts the door behind himself, struts over to Bucky, kneels down next to him and grabs his shirt, pulling him closer, pressing their lips together.

It doesn’t last for more than an instant, then Steve’s lips leave Bucky’s and his best friend is suddenly on the other end of the room. Bucky remains frozen on the floor, half laying, half sitting.

He watches dumbfoundedly as Steve presses himself against the wall. “Fuck. Sorry. I shouldn’t’ve – “

It’s dead quiet. Bucky presses his lips together, tries to comprehend what just happened.

Then there’s a voice in the back of his head that sounds suspiciously like his best friend telling him to not think about things too much and to just live in the moment for once.

So he gets up from the floor, walks over to where Steve is still leaning against the wall with his eyes clenched shut and his fists pressed to his side.

Bucky lays his hands on either side of Steve’s face. They only tremble ever so slightly as he does it.

He waits until Steve has opened his eyes. The silence is deafening. Bucky moves closer, closes the gap between them and presses their mouths together.

They have to pull away a few seconds later because they’re both smiling too damn much and Bucky wonders why they didn’t to this a lot earlier.

 

* * *

 

**2012**

It’s almost two in the morning when Tony leaves his lab.

In the weeks after the Battle of New York, as it’s been dubbed by the press, he’s scarcely slept more than four hours per night, thinking up solutions for the destruction that the alien attack left behind and improvements for equipment for this newly founded team of superheroes. Pepper drags him to bed every now and then when it gets particularly bad, but most of his days are spent tinkering in the lab, trying out his new clean-up robots on the street, bouncing ideas off of Bruce.

He suspects that he’s the last one up in Stark tower, even though it hosts more people now than usual. The third and fourth floor from the top that hold the guest rooms he keeps at the ready for parties and international guests have been taken over by the members of their ragtag team while they help with cleaning New York. Tony takes the elevator up to the top floor for a nightcap before going to bed.

It’s quiet, almost eerily so. He’s gotten so used to constant chatter throughout the day and the whirring machines in his lab that the silence feels deafening on his ears. He pours himself a glass of whiskey and steps closer to the tall windows and is glad that at least those were replaced quickly. It’d be quite chilly up here otherwise. He’s lost in his thoughts when he spots the glim of a cigarette on the terrace.

He really shouldn’t snoop.

He now lives in close proximity to several people with a lot of secrets and a lot of privacy issues and he really doesn’t want to get stabbed by Natasha because he intruded her personal space. And yet, curiosity gets the best of him and he quietly slides the glass door open and steps out into the fresh air, close enough to realise that the smoking silhouette against the New York skyline is Steve Rogers.

Tony watches in silence for a moment, then steps closer and leans against the railing next to Steve. Steve doesn’t show any sign of surprise, which is only natural for a soldier of his training. Tony takes a sip of his whiskey and then gestures at the cigarette still sitting between Steve’s fingers.

“You know those will kill you, right?”

Steve grins humourlessly and takes another drag. “Yeah, I’ve been told. Wish I coulda told that to the doctors who prescribed me cigarettes for my asthma.”

“That was really a thing?”

Steve shrugs. He keeps on smoking and staring into the brightness that is New York at night and Tony almost feels like he’s intruding. But then again, what better time to bond with your fellow teammate than at two am on a balcony?

“Must still feel pretty strange, huh?” He asks.

“Haven’t been back home in two years, stuck in Europe – well, I guess it’s been more like seventy.” Steve puts out his cigarette. “Last time I was here, I was trying to sell bonds for a war wearin’ fuckin’ tights, now that war’s over and I missed it’s ending and smoking’s bad for your health.”

Tony takes a sip of his drink and purses his lips. “Well, at least don’t think that it’ll do you any harm. Besides, we’ve all got our coping methods.”

Steve huffs a breath and takes out a beaten-up pack of cigarettes, lighting one and continuing to stare into the city. He doesn’t say anything for a while and Tony decides to let him, seeing the way he opens and closes his mouth to say something that he’s just not prepared for yet. Then, when the cigarette’s halfway gone, Steve bursts,

“Gay marriage is legal now, apparently.”

Tony’s brows shoot up. He knows that Steve’s from another time but wouldn’t exactly have pegged him for the homophobic type. Still, it’ll probably take some time to adjust. Without showing too much emotion, he answers, “Yeah, been legal in New York since 2011.”

Steve nods and presses his lips together. “At least that’s one good thing about being in the future.”

Tony’s head whips around to look at him.

“What, didn’t expect Captain America to be a queer?” Steve smirks at him, cigarette dangling from his lips. He looks nothing like the dashing, picture-perfect hero he’s supposed to be according to the history books.

“Not exactly what you’re advertised at, to be honest.”

A huff. “Of course not. Probably scrapped my Irish heritage as well, right? What ‘bout my police record? Did they ever make that public?”

Tony frowns. “Not sure what you mean…”

“Me ‘n Buck got put behind bars couple o’ times after protests ‘n stuff. I guess they couldn’t have that be known about an American hero, though.”

“The two of you were pretty inseparable, weren’t you.”

“Yeah.” There’s a soft smile on Steve’s face as he answers and suddenly, something clears up for Tony.

“Oh. You were…”

“Yeah.”

And Tony, who’s had just as many boyfriends as he had girlfriends, who doesn’t like labelling his sexuality but proudly supports LGBT+ charities and joins them at pride parades, who knows what it’s like to have the press ignore the fact that he’s openly queer, realises that Steve Rogers is a more complicated man than any of them thought.

They stand in silence for a while, then Steve grins at him and this time, it’s less tired, more boyish.

“Wanna get inside and tell me some more about gay marriage over another drink?”

“I’m pretty sure you can’t get drunk.”

“Yeah, but everything you have in that bar will be ten times better than everything we had during the war and the prohibition.”

Tony snorts and moves towards the glass door, holding it up for Steve.

“After you, good sir. Let me tell you how it went down; It was the 24thday of June 2011 and me and Rhodey were out in the city when we heard the news…”

 

* * *

 

**2014**

Missions, while action-packed at times, can be a real bore.

Steve and Natasha have been in Tokyo for a week now, following a possible Hydra weapon dealer, and it fucking sucks. All the guy ever does is hang out at home, go to the same restaurant for lunch and hang out at a bar in the evening.

Both of them are inpatient by now, itching for something to happen, for a way to let off some steam, anything that’s not standing in back alleys and waiting for their suspect to actually do something illegal.

And after three days, Natasha is so bored and mentally exhausted that she almost misses it.

Almost being the keyword.

They’re walking along a street a few metres after their suspect, arm in arm with backpacks and ugly hats to make them fit in with the tourist. There’s a huge billboard to their right announcing the new season of Game of Thrones, which Natasha notes in passing. If it was any other show, she wouldn’t have taken note of it, but Game of Thrones happens to be one of her guilty pleasures – a show with more intrigues and blood than her own life? Definitely something she enjoys watching.

She observes in mild interest as the billboard changes to a picture of Natalie Dormer as her character. Next to her, Steve’s arm tightens around hers only the slightest bit and there’s a short stutter in his steps, then everything is as it was before. And Natasha almost misses it, but she doesn’t, so that’s that.

She turns to look at him. “You okay?”

Steve nods and gives her a small smile. “Yeah, don’t worry.”

And if Natasha wasn’t a spy – and Steve’s best friend, for that matter – she would’ve left it at that, but because she is both of those things, she sees the way his cheeks are tinted pink ever so slightly.

Her eyes flick to the billboard and back to him. A grin spreads over her face. “Steve Rogers, do you think Natalie Dormer is hot?”

Now he’s definitely blushing. “She just reminds me of someone, tha’s all.”

“Oh, _someone_? Am I gonna hear some more of your war stories?”

Steve snorts. His eyes are on their target walking in front of them but there’s a small smirk playing on his face.

Natasha elbows him in the ribs. “Go on, tell me about her.”

Steve shakes his head at her in amusement but starts talking anyway. “There was a Private Lorraine working in London in forty-three. First time I met her she kissed me to ‘thank me in the name of all women whose husbands I’d saved’. Peggy saw us and almost shot me.”

“And that Private Lorraine looked like Natalie Dormer? Damn, boy, _get it_!”

Steve steers them around a group of tourists. “Let’s focus on the mission, shall we?

“We know where he’s going on, anyway. C’mon, tell me more about this woman.”

“Well, not much to tell. Met her a couple of times after that, she was a nice lady. Had a quick tongue, amongst other things.” He smirks at Natasha’s raised eyebrows. “We did have sex back in the day, you know?”

Natasha feels like it’s her turn to turn red. She doesn’t, of course, because she’s the Black Widow and the Black Widow doesn’t blush, but it’s not every day that The American Hero tells you about his sexual adventures back in the forties.

“Weren’t you dating James at the time?”

Steve comes to a stop as they reach a small park where their suspect sits down on a bench. He manoeuvres them to a nearby bench and sits down, laying an arm around her shoulders to keep up the tourist-couple-disguise. He’s becoming quite good at this spy-work, Natasha briefly thinks. Or maybe he’s always been good at disguising himself and she just didn’t notice.

They sit in the sun, the sounds of Tokyo around them as they keep an eye on their suspect. Steve starts talking again after a moment.

“It was the war, you know. We never knew if we’d get to see the next day or if one of us would step on a misplaced grenade or catch a stray bullet. We all kind of lived every day like it was the last one back then.”

“And James didn’t have a problem with you hooking up with another woman?”

Steve snorts. “Nah. Didn’t mind me being with other broads as long as I told him about them. Besides, he was way too stuck on a fellow called Paul Henderson. I mean, I got it, the son of a bitch was damn beautiful, but he wasn’t exactly my type.”

“And Private Lorraine was?”

“Her, Peggy, a showgirl or two, handful of soldiers,” Steve shrugs. “Even kissed Howard Stark once. Don’t tell Tony, though.”

Natasha whistles under her breath. “Didn’t expect the people of your time being so… open about that stuff, to be honest.”

“Like I said, it was war. And we were a special op, so we weren’t exactly your average American citizens anyway.”

Natasha is about to respond when a man in a suit walks up to their suspect. She nods her head at the scene and Steve gets up with her, silently following the pair.

They don’t get the chance to finish their conversation, caught up in a car chase and a breaking-and-entering and a mild explosion. When they get the clearance to leave the police station where their targets are securely behind bars later that day –the next day, to be more precise, it’s already after twelve – the world has a few Hydra agents less than before and the two of them can finally do something more interesting than following the same routine for a week.

They use their newly gained freedom to walk around Tokyo – still hand in hand, but now mostly for comfort than anything else. The city is lit up around them and they go to a bar, have a few drinks even though neither of them can get drunk on normal alcohol. After their third drink nodding along the music booming from the club that’s on the floor above the bar, Steve drags her outside by her wrist and passes her a pocket flask.

She sniffs at it and immediately knows that it’s way stronger than anything else inside that bar, some of Thor’s Asgardian booze that even they can get drunk on.

They pass the flask between them while Steve smokes a cigarette – another bad habit from the war, but it can’t hurt him anyway, he says. She steals it a few times to take a drag herself, already feeling the alcohol affect her.

When the flask is empty, Steve drags her onto the dancefloor of the club. It’s some kind of reggae/latino night but it doesn’t really matter because Steve holds her hips and leads her in a swing step and teaches her what to do when he lifts her up and spins them around. They’re not as coordinated as they’d usually be, the alcohol making them a bit wobbly, but Natasha hasn’t laughed this much in a long time.

They get back to their hotel room as the sun is almost rising again, still giggling, leaning on each other. When Steve closes the door behind them, Natasha grins up at Steve and, without really thinking about it, pushes him against it and kisses him.

And he kisses back, and it’s a good kiss, he’s a good _kisser_ , and Natasha realises that it’s because he’s had a lot of practice, and then she’s giggling into his mouth and Steve buries his face in her neck, laughing silently.

 

* * *

 

**2019**

Thanos is defeated and the people who disappeared through his snap have returned from the soul stone and Carol is, well, she’s not exactly sure how she is.

Exhausted, is one thought that comes to mind immediately. Tired enough to feel it in her bones, in every atom of her body. She would love to just lie down on the floor and sleep for a good twenty-four hours, yet she knows that the adrenaline pumping through her veins will prevent that for another two hours or so.

Worried, is another emotion filling her up, although that dies away pretty quickly after she dials Maria’s number from a cell phone that someone hands her. When Maria’s voice sounds through the speaker, Carol feels an invisible weight lift off her shoulders that seems even bigger than that of the responsibility of having to defeat Thanos was. Her jaw unclenches and her breathing steadies as Maria tells her that she’s alright, that Monica is alright and that Carol should spend the night wherever she is to renew her energies before coming to visit them. Carol tells her she loves her and then hangs up with a smile.

She’s also overwhelmed by everything around her. Not by Earth, because it hasn’t changed all too much since she last visited, especially compared to all the alien civilisations she’s seen over the years. It’s not the planet that overwhelms her but the people on it, calling themselves the Avengers, – she’ll have to have a word with Fury about that, – Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, whatever.

One of them is the heir to the Stark Empire – she remembers seeing his face in the tabloids every week with a different model at his arm when he was in college – and another one is Captain America himself, who is back from the dead, apparently, and with him his best friend turned brainwashed assassin, and then there’s a scientist and an assassin and a tree called Groot and more people than she can remember names of in the short time that she’s known them.

They’re on a terrace of the royal palace of Wakanda now, only a few hours after Thanos’ death and everyone’s return to earth. Someone is handing out beer, two teenagers are bickering over what kind of music to play over the speakers and the sun is slowly setting behind them, turning everything a soft shade of pink. You’d think this was a normal After-Work Party or a Casual Birthday Celebration and not a We Just Saved the World and Barely Missed Dying kind of event.

And Carol doesn’t know how to deal with that, if she’s honest.

So, when she finishes her call with Maria, she sits down on the floor a little separated from the crowd and leans against the railing of the terrace.

It’s just the right kind of quiet, enough for her to catch her breath but not in a way that she can get lost in her thoughts. Still, she’s thinking.

She’s thinking about how it’s weird that they can all just go from fighting for their own and everyone else in the universe’s life to hanging out and having a party. She suspects that they’ll all going to process with what happened in the privacy of their rooms later on and she knows that different people have different coping mechanisms, yet she doesn’t really know how to handle this situation.

It seems as if she’s not the only one.

Someone sits down next to her with a sigh and when she looks over to see Steve Rogers – Captain fucking America himself – she has to hide her surprise. There’s a big glass with some kind of pink drink and two metal straws in it in his hand and he pushes his sunglasses up into his hair and says,

“You look like you could use a drink.”

This whole situation is unreal.

But she’s seen weirder today, so she gives him a smile, shakes her head and says, “I can’t get drunk. Side-effect of the Tesseract.”

Steve grins. “Same here. But I told Shuri about it once and she created alcohol strong enough even for me. And it’s fucking delicious, so that’s a treat.”

Steve Rogers, Army Legend and the Image of Righteousness himself swearing and drinking? Carol decides to just roll with it.

“Isn’t Shuri too young to drink?”

“Not in Wakanda, apparently. Wanna try?” He holds out his glass and Carol tentatively takes a sip from one of the straws. It tastes somewhat like strawberry margaritas but differently and Steve is right, it is fucking delicious.

“Damn, that’s good,” she says.

“Right? She created, like, five different flavours. Bucky can’t stop drinking the blue one, you should try it later.”

Carol hums in agreement and they pass the glass back and forth in silence, observing their team.

Then the drink is almost empty and Carol already feels the first tingles in her body, not tipsy yet but definitely on the way there. When she looks over at Steve, he’s grinning back at her.

“Feels great after all that time, doesn’t it?”

She nods. “When’d Captain America start drinking, anyway?”

Steve laughs. “Back In the thirties? Although this is definitely an improvement to the shit we used’ta drink during the prohibition.”

Carol snorts. “I betcha. But you were tiny back then, probably got hammered on a swig of beer.”

“Pretty much, yeah. Bucky used’ta carry me home complaining all the way, but after I couldn’t get drunk anymore, he whined about losing that tradition.”

Carol throws a glance at him and sees him smiling in a way that she knows isn’t just reminiscing about the good ol’ days with his best friend. It’s a smile she recognises. And in the light of everything she’s seen these past days, hell, even just compared to everything else she’s found out about Steve Rogers today, him being in love with a man isn’t even the most surprising part.

She looks over to where Bucky is standing to one of the other people who were dusted in the snap – she thinks his name is Sam – the two of them very obviously laughing about one of the teenagers hanging out in the back.

“I’m gonna marry him as soon as we find the time.” There’s a soft look on his face and Carol gets it, the feeling of pure happiness about doing something that, not long ago, wasn’t even a possibility you allowed yourself to think of. Even though she’s known Steve for less than a week, she already feels closer to him than to most people out there.

She bumps their shoulders together. “Tell me when and where, I’ll be there.”

Steve downs the rest of their drink and moves to get up from the floor. “I’m gonna get us another glass, then we can discuss flower arrangements.”

Carol giggles, the alcohol making everything seem a bit lighter, a bit softer.

“What do you think about red-white-blue?”

 

* * *

 

**(+ 2019**

Bucky wakes up to rain hitting the window. It takes a moment to take in his surroundings, then he remembers where he is – a small bed and breakfast somewhere on the west coast of Ireland, and, more precisely, laying in the arms of his husband on their honeymoon.

His husband. On their honeymoon.

He doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to that thought.

He frowns at the sound of seagulls and the quiet baa-ing of sheep outside their window.

His voice is scratchy in his throat as he voices his thoughts. “Coulda gone some place warm. Fuckin’ Hawaii, for all I care. But no, the Mister just had to pick the place with the worst weather.”

There’s a chuckle behind him as Steve wraps his arms tighter around him, pulling him closer to his chest.

His breath tickles Bucky’s neck as he murmurs, “Quiet, _a stór_. Sleep now, complain later.”

And so Bucky does, letting the sound of waves crashing against the shores and rain hitting the roof lull him back to sleep.)

**Author's Note:**

> the lullaby sarah sings for steve: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ur0aZfUWht0
> 
> (I'm not irish, please tell me if I didn't translate the gaelic bits correctly)


End file.
